
Gass. 
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ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



AN ADDRESS 



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George H. Yeaman 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



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BEFORE THE COMMANDERY OF THE STATE OF COLORADO, MILITARY ORDER 
OF THE LOYAL LEGION OF THE UNITED STATES 



George H. Yeaman 



Denver, Colorado, February 13, 1899 



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1B99 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



The Commander, Hon. Julius B. Bissell, pro- 
posed the toast : "Abraham Lincoln, the Best Product 
of Universal Opportunity," and introduced the Hon. 
George H. Yeaman, of New York, who responded. 

Mr. Commander, Companions of the Order of the 
Loyal Legion. 

Ladies and Gentlemen — The study of the life, 
character and public services of Abraham Lincoln is 
of national import to us and bears a message to the 
whole human race. He teas the best product of uni- 
versal opportunity. If Lincoln be now second to any 
figure in American history, it is only to him who was 
pronounced "first in war, first in peace, and first in the 
hearts of his fellow citizens." But there is a lesson, 
a perpetual message, in the life of Lincoln closer to 
the people than any found in the life of Washington — 
one that will keep the two side by side so long as the 
history of the American republic shall be read. And 
if, in the far distant future, our noble language shall 
meet the fate of others and be no longer spoken among 



— 4 — 

men, it is a question whether, when read as a dead 
language, the account it will give of Lincoln will not 
prove of more interest to mankind than the story of 
any man of our Anglo-Saxon race. His struggles and 
his services will partly account for this, but it will 
be largely owing to that irresistible movement of all 
mankind towards personal and political freedom, self- 
government, legal equality and universal opportunity 
of which movement he was himself both an effect, and 
in turn a potent, propelling cause. 

Born in an unhewn log cabin, in the wilderness, 
the bare-footed, tangle-haired boy, by turns frolicsome 
and serious, grew up to be the stalwart rail-splitter, 
the flatboat man, a volunteer in an Indian war, village 
postmaster, country store keeper, surveyor, lawyer, 
member of the legislature, never successful in money 
getting, a congressman, then introduced to the nation 
by his debates with Douglas and his Cooper Union 
speech at New York, became president of the United 
States, conducted the country through the greatest 
civil war in history, was a better campaign strategist 
than some of his generals whose tactics won notable 
victories in pitched battles, emancipated four millions 
of slaves, and was the leading mind and actor in sav- 
ing the Union and the national life. And he, who, in 
the midst of war said, "Government must be by bal- 
lots, not bullets," fell under the bullet of an assassin. 
Such a history can never cease to interest mankind. 

In no other country, under no other institutions, 
could a child so born and so reared, a youth struggling 



— 5 — 

under such disadvantages, have achieved such a ca- 
reer and performed such services to his country and to 
mankind, and the fact be regarded as normal. In 
England it would have been a bare possibility, but a 
prodigy. 

That career and those services are the best fruits 
of the principles of natural and political rights ex- 
pressed in the Declaration of Independence, and the 
best vindication of American institutions. 

I have been asked to give some personal reminis- 
cences of Mr. Lincoln. I think it is a question whether 
this has not been overdone ; but I shall mention a few 
not hitherto made public, only because I think they il- 
lustrate his character. 

Meeting him going down the stairway in the 
evening, after a greeting with his usual kindness, he 
asked me if I could not return next morning. Of 
course I would, "I would not think of stopping you as 
you are going out." "Yes,'' said he, "I would not like 
to stop now, if you can come back another time con- 
veniently. I am just going to hear a pullet crow." 
And, with his silvery, ringing laugh, added, "I am go- 
ing to hear Miss lecture." This is an instance of 

that innate love of fun-making, which some of his own 
friends thought was carried too far. But it was his 
nature to be both homely and good-humored, and to 
draw illustrations from nature's storehouse. Argu- 
ments on serious matters were often addressed to oth- 
ers in the form of a jest or an anecdote leaving no 



— 6 — 

sting behind. The argument was always visible 
through the rough garb of the backwoods anecdote. 

Examining a large military map hanging against 
the wall, Mr. Lincoln approached me and pointed out 
where the Mississippi river once made a horseshoe 
bend, nearly a complete circuit, around which he went 
on a flat-boat in descending the river, and pointed 
out where the river broke through the narrow penin- 
sula, while he was at New Orleans, making a new chan- 
nel through which the pilot, on the up journey, guided 
the steamer, where it was dry land on the down trip. 

The president of the United States was not 
ashamed thus to allude to that incident of his early 
life as a wage-earner, an honest laborer. He was not 
ashamed of his early struggles, and in his eminence 
and success showed no pride or vanity. The lesson of 
his life, his success, and his greatness, his message to 
every child born under the American flag, is not to 
blush for lowly or humble origin, nor to be discouraged 
by early difficulties and struggles ; but to discover the 
spark within, and, under our universal opportunity 
and the legal equality of our institutions, nurse and 
expand that spark into a broad, noble light and a gen- 
ial warmth for all mankind. 

A squad of rollicking young blades started off to 
join the Confederate army, but had not yet entered its 
service, and on their way met a boy on horseback car- 
rying the United States mail. They confiscated the 
horse, tore open the mail bag, scattered the letters on 



— 7 — 

the road, and soon found themselves in the embrace of 
a squad of Union cavalry. The legal situation was. of 
course, critical enough. Their parents asked me to 
intercede. When the case was laid before the presi- 
dent he looked thoughtful and remarked that it was a 
pretty serious thing. I said it was; but I hoped it 
would not occur again. He replied there were too 
many violations of the law going on — he thought they 
ought to be stopped. I still pleaded for mercy to the 
boys. He then said, "I will turn these boys out on 
one condition.'' ''What condition, Mr. President?"' 
"That you pledge your personal honor that they will 
behave themselves in the future." "Mr. President, 
that is a hard saying. I do not know these boys per- 
sonally : I know their parents : they are Southern sym- 
pathizers, but are good, respectable people. I believe 
that the boys have now been so badly frightened that 
they will keep the peace in the future." He looked 
thoughtful, hesitated and said. "Well, we'll try this 
once, but if these boys cut up any more shines, you 
must not come back to me again in their behalf." 
"Yes, Mr. President, if they cut up any more shines, 
I will come back to you. but I will come back to insist 
that the law take its course." And he signed an order 
for their release. "With malice towards none, with 
charity for all." 

On another occasion I called and found the usu- 
ally genial, sparkling, anecdote-telling president the 
most serious, intent and melancholy looking man that 



— 8 — 

I ever beheld. His appearance gave me positive pain. 
He was alone, at his desk, hard at work, and I 
promptly offered to retire and call again. "No, sit 
down; I'll be through shortly." While waiting, his 
little son p trtly opened the door and said, "Papa, 
mamma says the company will soon assemble." I 
arose and again offered to retire. "Please be seated; 
we'll get to it directly." He was working hard; his 
face showed more than earnestness ; it showed anxiety, 
sadness, melancholy indescribable. Disasters had 
come in the field, and it was not all harmony among 
his supporters. While waiting, his barber entered the 
room. I again offered to retire. "No, just excuse me 
one moment;" and he rose, quickly threw off his coat, 
seated himself in one chair and stretched his long legs 
across another. The barber lathered his face and com- 
menced stropping a razor, when that tired, overbur- 
dened president of the United States turned his face 
towards me and gently asked, "Now what can we do?" 
I told my mission. It was answered promptly, kindly, 
decided correctly, and I, wondering, went my way. 
We need not compare this with the court etiquette of 
emperors and kings. We need not ask if Washington, 
or Adams, or even Jefferson, would so have received a 
visitor on business. But it was Abraham Lincoln, 
manifesting by his appearance and his manner great 
mental stress, the heavy responsibility he was carry- 
ing, and yet his patient, earnest desire to hear every- 
thing that might be presented to him through proper 



— 9 — 

channels, about either public or personal matters. 
If it was informal, it was intensely conscientious, hu- 
man and democratic. 

In what did Lincoln's strength and statesman- 
ship consist? 

His success and services make no precedent for 
elevating to high station untried men merely because 
of those personal qualities that endear them to others 
and inspire personal confidence. This would be to in- 
vite disaster. There must be proved ability. Lincoln's 
nomination for the presidency was no blind experi- 
ment inspired by heedless enthusiasm. He had proved 
his ability by his debates with one of the greatest po- 
litical debaters of the age, by his Cooper Union speech. 
and by what he said to the convention that nom- 
inated him. 

If we may compare him with others, he lacked 
Washington's imposing dignity and stately manners : 
he lacked the majestic presence and massive reason- 
ing of Webster: he had not the exalted philosophy 
and the resplendent rhetoric of Burke. But he had all 
their faculty of aualysis, and he excelled them in the 
faculty of statement— statement that is its own logic 
—its own proof— the faculty of statement that is the 
highest and best quality of the lawyer, the judge and 
the statesman. His judgment did not wait upon slow, 
ponderous reasoning. It was the quick, clear, incisive 
process of luminous common sense. Conclusions 
reached were expressed in statement never excelled. 



— 10 — 

Others have excelled him in different directions. But 
in the highest qualities of executive talent, combined 
with expression that seemed to exhaust the capacity 
of our language for both beauty and strength, he has 
had no equal in American statesmanship. 

If this faculty and habit of convincing statement 
was an unconscious following of the bent of his own 
mind, it was well. If it was conscious art it was art 
of a high order. Many minds will resist an attack by 
gradual approach, one logical trench after another, 
that would surrender with enthusiasm to a laconic, 
brilliant, concrete statement of truth. I know not 
which moved him. But Abraham Lincoln, always 
honest, was not devoid of art. He was skillful and 
masterful in handling and controlling men, and no 
public man of America has been so shrewd, unless it 
was Ben Franklin. And how can an untaught man 
exercise art in oratory and in composition? By self- 
teaching, by self-study, seeing mankind reflected in 
himself. The people saw themselves reflected in Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

The great epoch of American history in which 
he took the leading part was an evolution of long 
coming, and furnished the emergency that called for 
his qualities. Emergencies may illuminate qualities; 
they do not make greatness, but give it opportunity. 
This detracts nothing from Lincoln's greatness. A 
chief element of his power was his intense humanism, 
his visible, throbbing, felt closeness to his "plain 



— 11 — 

people." He needs no myth-making hero worship, 
and he is best treated as a man and not as a demi-god. 

We do not overlook the services of great generals 
and an army of heroic volunteers. The part they per- 
formed was indispensable. But they needed the sup- 
port of public sentiment. Washington created and 
directed public sentiment from the camp, with a halt- 
ing, captious Continental Congress in his rear, and a 
Conway cabal on his flank. Lincoln created public 
sentiment, encouraged the discouraged, restrained 
the impetuous, was leader in the highest and best 
sense. And it is a curious, hope-giving fact that the 
mass of the people discovered his qualities and worth, 
his fitness to lead, while brilliant journalists and wise 
politicians of his own party were, in all honesty, 
doubting and criticizing. 

Washington and Lincoln were alike in this : The 
victims of vituperation, envy, bad faith and personal 
assault, neither ever degenerated into cynicism or mis- 
anthropy. This was not the stoicism of indifference. 
They were not indifferent. They were human and 
keenly sensitive. It was the higher courage of faith 
in the ultimate verdict of mankind. The highest cour- 
age of which human nature is capable, a magnanimity 
at once tender and firm, is the courage to believe in 
the ultimate justice of human nature, and to continue 
to serve and to love mankind, while smarting under 
the injustice of contemporaries and erstwhile friends. 
Many of the revolutionary fathers were good, honest 



— 12 — 

haters. Washington, though incapable of malice, did 
occasionally hate for a season, his innate magnanimity 
soon resuming sway. Lincoln differed and suffered 
without animosity. 

He had a great, distinct, strong personality: but 
he also had the advantage of a great historical emer- 
gency. — and we shall fail to understand him and his 
course in that emergency, without considering our 
past history and some of the great actors in the polit- 
ical struggles which culminated in Appomattox. 

From the inception of our government, before its 
foundation, in the early stages of the revolution, in the 
structure and operation of the Articles of Confedera- 
tion, in the trouble, confusion and inefficiency that 
reigned between Yorktown and the adoption of the 
Constitution, fitly called "The Critical Period," in the 
deliberations of the constitutional convention, in the 
great and doubtful effort to have the new Constitution 
adopted, and from 1789, when it was adopted, down to 
1861, at the outbreak of the civil war, there were woven 
and imbedded in and running all through the current 
of our political history two causes of strife — slavery. 
and the relations of the states to the federal govern- 
ment. 

Mr. Lincoln was always opposed to slavery. His 
opposition, as expressed in the debates with Douglas. 
would indicate adherence to conservative lines. He 
would only prevent the spread of the institution. 
Other views came later and in the light of events that 



— 13 — 

compelled more radical measures. And here it must be 
noted that in our early history the opposition to slav- 
ery did not come solely from the North. Thomas Jef- 
ferson and other noted Southerners were outspoken 
and undisguised in their condemnation of the institu- 
tion. The first draft of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence in his handwriting contained as an item of com- 
plaint against Great Britain, the encouragement of 
the slave trade against the wishes of the colonies. 
This was stricken out upon the advice of others. 

The other element of discord, discussion and com- 
promise was the status of the colonies under the con- 
federation and after independence had been achieved, 
and the relations of the several states to the federal 

rnment under the Constitution. Upon one side 
was the desire for a strong national government : upon 
the other was the fear of concentrated and cons 
dated power in the nation, and an earnest, aln. st 
fierce, desire to preserve state autonomy, to an extent 
incompatible with national functions. 

Hamilton may be taken as the representative of 
the idea of a strong nationality : Jefferson, as the rep- 
- iitative of the idea of the sufficiency of the state 
governments, and with just as little power as possible 
given to the federal government. Hamilton's trans- 
cendent talents were the principal factor in securing 
the adoption of the convention's plan of government. 
It was known to be not altogether to his liking. In 
his judgment, it yielded too much to the states. He 



— 14 — 

was the greatest constructive genius American states- 
manship has produced ; and, thanks to his exposition of 
the instrument while advocating its adoption, the Fed- 
eralist became the storehouse of constitutional law and 
political science, to be enlarged and elaborated by 
Webster and Marshall. He builded better than he 
hoped, for his later fear that he might live to see the 
Union fall to pieces was not realized. 

Jefferson's jealousy and fear of concentrated 
power in the national government may have been an 
error of judgment, but was not a crime. The whole 
history of English liberty had been the history of re- 
sistance to concentrated and irresponsible power, the 
history of the increase of the power and self-govern- 
ment of the people acting through their chosen repre- 
sentatives in the commons. The same fear of power 
caused Patrick Henry and many other noted patriots 
to resist the adoption of the Constitution. We are 
apt to forget how hard and protracted that struggle 
was; how narrow the escape from failure, and to for- 
get the patriotism, the character and talent arrayed 
against that compromise scheme of the convention as 
finally submitted for adoption. Notwithstanding the 
partial compromise of opposing views, the causes of 
dissension remained, if not in the language of the in- 
strument, yet in the history of its formation and 
adoption. 

Jefferson's mind dwelt too exclusively on the 
historic danger of concentrated, unchecked power. 



— 15 — 

Hamilton's mind dwelt too exclusively on the defects 
of the articles of confederation, the workings of which 
would have been ridiculous if not so serious and dis- 
astrous. Each had wisdom, but each was human and 
was inspired by fear; each feared a different danger, 
and allowed his fear to carry him too far towards the 
opposite extreme. One would have given too much 
power and restraint by the nation over the states ; the 
other would have given the states too much check on 
the operations of the national government. 

The Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of '98 
and '99, declared the right of each state to judge for 
itself of infractions of the national Constitution, 
which they defined as a "federal compact." This is 
the doctrine of nullification. The doctrine was elab- 
orated by Mr. Calhoun, the most astute logician in 
our political history, into the right of voluntary with- 
drawal from the Union, defined as a voluntary con- 
federacy of independent sovereign states. This is the 
doctrine of secession. 

Jefferson threw his influence against slavery, 
against entail and primogeniture, in favor of religious 
freedom, the divorce of church and state, in favor 
of both elementary and higher education, and he was 
the prophet on this continent of the inalienable rights 
of man. Hamilton became the earliest and most skill- 
ful architect of constitutional, responsible, limited, 
national gomernment; a government co-existent with 
the state governments, a government that could act, 



— 16 — 

command and enforce its commands within its limited 
province, not merely asking for the consent of sov- 
ereign states to national and international measures 
of common interest to all. 

In the convention Franklin finally signed and 
persuaded others to sign, not because he thought it 
perfect, but thought it better than none. It was bet- 
ter than he thought; it was better than Hamilton 
thought; it was better than Jefferson thought. But 
it did not avoid the bursting of the storm, the seeds of 
which were embedded in our political history. 

It was in the nature of things that this fond idea 
of state autonomy, state interests, state rights, 
state sovereignty, the ultimate right of independ- 
ent state action, should draw to, and ally with it- 
self, any temporary, local fear, protest, interest or 
passion. In my own native state it found its 
first ally in the intense feeling about the use and 
navigation of the Mississippi river, and a suggested 
union with Spain, or the conquest of Louisiana. 
Alliance with opposition to the alien and sedition 
laws approached more nearly to a principle affecting 
the whole country, the invasion of personal liberty by 
executive power. In the eastern states this feeling of 
statehood next found an ally in opposition to embargo 
and non-intercourse laws, and aversion to the war of 
1812. Next came as an ally, the local opposition to 
tariff legislation ; and finally came the inevitable and 
last alliance with slavery; after that institution had 



— 17 — 

died at the North, but, by a singular fatality, had been 
for a time strengthened at the South by the cotton gin, 
otherwise an enormous gain to mankind. Always the 
idea of the state "my state" its right and power, was 
the permanent force, and always something tem- 
porary was the irritating incident. I apply the word 
temporary to slavery itself. We thus have the genesis 
of the great sectional issue; on one side, state rights, 
in its extreme form, allied with slavery; on the other 
side nationality, allied, in the main, not uniformly, 
with the anti-slavery feeling. 

It is thus seen that the seeds of the great civil 
war were woven into the warp and woof of our polit- 
ical history, and I have always been persuaded that 
while slavery had a large influence, it was only an in- 
cident, and that the greater cause was the historical 
conflict of opinions about the relations of the states 
to the nation. 

This bird's-eye view of our political history pre- 
pares us for an estimate of Lincoln's statesmanship, 
and the nature of his services. He was as ardent a 
democrat, in the political and non-partisan sense of 
that term, as applied to the legal and political equality 
of persons, as Jefferson himself, — but he rejected Jef- 
ferson's extreme defensive measures. He was as ear- 
nest a nationalist as Hamilton; but he rejected all ex- 
cess of concentration and consolidation. He adopted 
all of the safe and good from the principles of each 
and rejected the extremes of each. There was danger 



— 18 — 

that the Union might be lost. There was danger that 
in saving the Union, the exasperated passions and the 
fierce heat of civil war might permanently impair, if 
they did not consume, statehood. 

What he saw in the Constitution, what he directed 
a great war to maintain and perpetuate, was an "in- 
dissoluble union of indestructible states." This com- 
bination, the selection of the good and exclusion of 
the erroneous, and the self-poise to do this in the midst 
of a great civil war, was statesmanship of the high- 
est order. The result, as we now have it, is the largest 
and most successful system of dual government, na- 
tional and local, co-existent and harmonious, ever es- 
tablished by any people. 

In this he was aided, no doubt, by the expositions 
of Webster and Marshall. But it is one thing to ex- 
pound in the senate or on the bench, and a harder thing 
to save from the conflagration of civil war. He re- 
strained as much as he urged. If not the first of Amer- 
ican statesmen to point out the true combination, he 
certainly was the most efficient, and saved it under 
the greatest difficulties. 

In the beginning of the war he would have gladly 
saved the nation without destroying slavery, could 
that have been done, leaving the institution to that 
slow decay to which it was already doomed. But when 
slavery seemed to stand an obstacle in the way of sav- 
ing the nation's life, he struck down the obstacle. 



— 19 — 

His policy, as expressed to the convention which 
nominated him, was to "arrest the further spread of 
slavery, and place it where the public mind shall rest 
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinc- 
tion." Extinction how? By those gradual, moral, 
economic influences and legal measures under which 
it had become extinct at the North, and, to close ob- 
servers, was already showing signs of decay at the 
South. The feverish desire for expansion was one of 
those signs. When statesmen said that geographical 
confinement would result in local and domestic dan- 
ger, they should have gone further and admitted, as 
they vaguely felt, that the institution carried and 
nursed its own inherent and ineradicable danger. 

Nothing is plainer than that such a measure as the 
emancipation proclamation had not entered his mind 
when he was first called to the presidency, and would 
at that time have been firmly rejected. His debate 
with Douglas and his earlier statements of policy in 
the beginning of the great civil conflict, and after 
armed conflict was seen to be inevitable, clearly looked 
to as little disturbance of the existing order of things 
as possible, as did his approval, in 1861, of a resolu- 
tion of congress declaring that the war was not waged 
to overthrow the institutions of the Southern states. 
The declaration did not calm the South. 

In the second year of the war, when it had reached 
colossal proportions, he said : "My paramount object 
is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy 



— 20 — 

slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing 
any slave, I would do it ; if I could save it by freeing all 
the slaves, I would do it ; and if I could do it by freeing 
some and leaving others alone, I would also do that." 

And as the combat deepened, and it became more 
and more evident that abolition would be a gain of 
both political and military strength, and secure the 
success of the Union arms, and thereby attain his 
"paramount object" of saving the Union, then came the 
proclamation, and afterwards the Thirteenth Consti- 
tutional xVmendment, abolishing slavery. 

Being myself next to the youngest member of the 
house, elected from a slave state, and in favor of the 
preservation of the Union, without conditions, yet, 
like the people who sent me, I clung to the Constitu- 
tion as my political bible. My first effort in the house 
was an earnest, conscientious argument against the 
constitutionality of the emancipation proclamation 
and against its wisdom as a Avar measure. But when 
the anti-slavery amendment was offered, I voted to 
place the seal of constitutional law upon universal 
freedom. Yet it took some years of reflection and of 
retrospective consideration to become convinced, as I 
finally did, that in the matter of the proclamation, as 
a war measure and a necessity, Abraham Lincoln was 
right and I was wrong. 

Before a shot was fired he saw the tendency of the 
age, he read the judgment of the civilized world, he 
saw already fully developed the last alliance, the al- 



— 21 — 

liance of the loved and potent idea of state rights with 
a matter of vast local interest. Yet he would, if pos- 
sible, save the Union, the nation, without destroying 
slavery. That seeming to have become impossible, he 
met the emergency, rose to the occasion, assumed the 
responsibility of action. And through the ages to come 
the history of the Union and freedom under the Union 
will hold up to the admiration of mankind, as the 
greatest saving influence in our greatest danger, the 
character, the firmness, the homely sayings, the free- 
dom from passion, the singular common sense, the al- 
most divine charity, of Abraham Lincoln. He piloted 
the nation and the states through that storm and 
landed them safely, each strengthened with all the 
wisdom of Hamilton, of Jefferson and Franklin, with 
their extremes and unwisdom thrown overboard. He 
did not originate, but he saved ; and the wisdom of in- 
terpreting, reconciling and saving was not less than 
the wisdom of compromising and building. 

Lincoln's mind never ceased to grow. Through 
life he had perceptivity, receptivity, elasticity, and 
therefore, through life, he had expansion and growth. 
He grew more rapidly in the midst of the clash of 
arms and the wreck of armies than at any period of 
his life. But to his glory be it said that in the midst 
of civil war, that furnace which usually excites and 
looses all of the bad, all the devilish, in human na- 
ture, Lincoln never lost his genial sympathy with 
mankind, all mankind, the South included, nor his 



— 22 — 

sturdy, abiding confidence in the people, and their 
ultimate judgment, the South included. And his was 
not the pretended confidence of a flatterer. He told 
the rugged truth in his own homely style when he 
said, "You can fool some of the people all the time, 
you can fool all the people some of the time, but you 
can not fool all the people all the time." That was 
the basis of his confidence. No demagogue could or 
would have spoken such words. 

He continues to grow in the public estimate of his 
greatness and services. A generation has now passed 
away since his career ended in the meridian of his 
faculties. As year by year adds its distance between 
now and the far-off then, as the lengthening vista of 
time still carries him and his work further and further 
away, the law of natural and historic perspective 
seems reversed, and his character, his genius, his serv- 
ices, his very image, instead of converging more and 
more towards an invisible point, seem to grow, ex- 
pand, and give a brighter, a broader and a lovelier 
light and warmth from the receding distance. 

It has been said that he was inconsistent. Yes 
and no — -with emphasis on the No. He was incon- 
sistent as every man is who continues all his life to 
grow. Inconsistent with the letter of past expres- 
sion. Consistent with wider views, with present con- 
victions under existing facts; consistent with duty 
and an earnest desire for the public good, consistent 
in general aim, the "paramount" end, seizing oppor- 



— 23 — 

tunity, equal to emergency, rising with the occasion. 
The debate with Douglas and the earlier expressions 
as president did not point to the final anti-slavery war 
measure, nor even to the Thirteenth Amendment. But 
history gives no example of a written constitution of 
government making any adequate provision for con- 
ducting a vast civil war to save the political life and 
the territorial unity of the nation. In some respects 
and for some purposes; Inter arma silent leges. Men 
of Lincoln's mould apply the maxim limited and 
restrained by Salus populi suprema est lex. In 
statesmanship, literal consistency with the letter of 
past expressions is littleness of mind and lack of cour- 
age. Had Bismarck been literally consistent, the Ger- 
many of to-day would not exist. Had Gladstone re- 
mained literally consistent, the greatest measures and 
greatest thoughts of that greatest English statesman 
of this century would have been lost to a free and pro- 
gressive people. Jefferson once thought and said that 
the Constitution conferred no power to acquire for- 
eign territory. And he was a strict constructionist. 
But for all that he bought Louisiana of Napoleon, and 
thereby added to our domain an empire much larger 
than the original thirteen states. Had he not done so, 
we should to-day have been confronted bv a foreign 
power on the whole length of the Mississippi river as 
our western border, a power embracing the exit of 
that stream into the gulf. In this Jefferson was in- 
consistent with a previous opinion, but consistent 



— 24: — 

with the interest, the safety and the greatness of the 
republic. 

Others acquired the contiguous territories of 
Florida, Louisiana, Texas, California, Colorado. Lin- 
coln has forever bound them together as one territory, 
one people, one nation. And the people more than ad- 
mire him; they love Jiim. Without distinction of 
party, they love his memory with a love that knows no 
sectional lines. And the Xorth is not ungenerous. 
Believing that the great commanders of the Confed- 
erate armies were mistaken, the people of the North 
are to-day proud of the American blood, American 
genius, American valor and American grit and stay- 
ing power of Lee, Johnston. Johnson, Jackson, Long- 
street and Wheeler. General Wheeler's literal incon- 
sistency is the kind of higher and broader consistency 
the people of America, both Xorth and South, admire 
and love to honor. 

Allusion has been made to the great and enduring 
lesson of Lincoln's life, character and services. That 
lesson is applicable to our present situation. Some of 
us are ^Republicans, some Democrats, some Populists. 
and a few of us Hun 'rumps. But we are all for our 
country first, and for party next, and for party only 
as a means to secure what we deem our country's good. 
Some are for a high protective tariff, some for tariff 
for revenue only, and some for free trade. Some for 
the yellow metal, some for the white metal, some for 
both, side by side, and some for greenbacks. Each is 



— 25 — 

entirely consistent with himself and agrees quickly 
with his adversary in accepting all he can honestly g - 

of any color, which shows how much smaller our ques- 
tions are than those with which Lincoln had to deal. 

His message to us is to conduct all political con- 
troversies, not for personal, or partisan, or sectional 
interests or aims, but with a view to the common g 
of our common country. If you feel in earnest, debate 
with -animated moderation," with self-restraint, for- 
bearance, and respect for opponents, accepting defeat 
with composure and victory without exultation: and 
whatever betide parties, questions, candidates and 
policies, deal with results and with each other -with 
malice towards none, with charity for all." Re- 
strained and guided by this sentiment, each party will 
sometimes win and sometimes lose, but the country 
will always win and forever preserve the great end 
that -Government of the people, by the people, for the 
people, shall not perish from the earth." 



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